SALT LAKE CITY — I’m as Jewish as the Katzman Bar Mitzvah, but my grandmother does point out a chink in my armor (hole in my yarmulke?) – when I order a corned-beef sandwich, I get it on white bread.

“You’re supposed to get it on rye,” she’s said passionately to me for, well, three decades.
It became such a faux pas of mine that at Stein’s Deli in New Orleans, where I used to live, the guys behind the counter actually referred to me as “White Bread.”

Well, I’m at it again. I like corned beef on white and I like pastrami … on burgers.

Yes, here in Salt Lake City, where I’ve doubled the Jewish population, I ate lunch at Crown Burgers, where the Crown Burger has a quarter-pound cheeseburger topped with a pile of hot pastrami.

After the Utah Jazz shootaround, I hopped over to Crown Burgers with Jody Genessy of The Deseret News and Jim Burton (glasses in picture) of The Ogden Standard Examiner (Deron Williams had originally planned on joining us).

Inside, we met the excited owner of Crown Burgers, a gent named Mike Katsanevas (rhymes with Patsanevas). Flipping burgers behind him stood his proud father, Manuel, who at age 72 still comes to work every morning at 6:30 a.m. (pretty cool, indeed).

I told Mike that I was from Denver, and he quickly pointed out that the Crown Burgers in Denver “has NOTHING to do with us!” Apparently, as Mike explained in a Ferris-passed-out-at-31-Flavors way, Mike’s father’s brother’s wife’s sister started the Crown Burgers in Denver and, so it seems, ruffled the feathers off the Utah Katsanevases. I felt his pain. It reminded me of the renowned pianist named, yes, Benjamin Hochman, who perpetually tries to steal my thunder by being a little better looking and a little more accomplished (as The New York Times wrote, “Fluidity and resiliency were two hallmarks of Mr. Hochman’s playing, executed with the smoothness of cream but the transparency of water.”)

He even snatched www.benjaminhochman.com (but I am in the process of creating www.benjaminhochman.gov, though I’ve hit a minor road bump).

After, receiving our trays, I followed Jody over to get some ketchup, but Jody had no intention of acquiring such a contemptible condiment. No sir, Jody went to get what folks in Utah call, no lie, “fry sauce.”

“Fry sauce is a Utah staple,” he explained. “It’s mixed with mayonnaise, ketchup, spices here and there, some secret ingredients (I asked Mike Katsanevas what’s in the fry sauce, and he diplomatically said: ‘There are seven ingredients. I can’t tell you the ingredients.’)”

Jody continued: “Most people use fry sauce. It’s a Utah staple like Jerry Sloan – I’d say it’s even bigger than Jerry Sloan. Amazingly, it was here before Jerry Sloan – and it’s now lasted longer than him. … It’s almost like thousand island, minus the dressing. It is contributing to thousands of Utahans getting fatter than they should have been.”

As we sat down to eat our pastrami on burgers, I spotted a magnificent mullet. This wasn’t just a 1989-second-baseman mullet – this was a hide-a-Butterball-turkey-during-a-grocery-robbery mullet. I coolly pretended to type a text message, but actually began to take a picture of the mulleted man across the restaurant. But, rule No. 1 about sneaking shots of mullets from afar is … make sure your flash is OFF! As I watched the screen while I clicked the button, I was like, “Why is the guy suddenly turning and staring at me? Ohhhhhh.” Thus, that’s why the photo is so blurry – I promptly pretended I was taking photos of the ceiling tiles.

(In earlier centuries, some mathematicians argued that each Awesome was independent of and unrelated to the other Awesome, ergo, proving that adding the two separate Awesomes doesn’t ascertain that the Awesomeness would thus be doubled.)

Jody was chowin’ down, explaining between bites that “the burger is dancing the tango in my mouth!” I, of course, explained that my burger was dancing the hora. It really was a delicious meal – an unmatched staple of a Salt Lake City dining staple – though, as our third friend Jim pointed out, “They also have really good turkey souvlakia here.”

I lived in Idaho for 3 years … you can’t get anything without fry sauce, its like mayo in Montreal and green chile in New Mexico

mang the merciless

I lived in Idaho for 3 years … you can’t get anything without fry sauce, its like mayo in Montreal and green chile in New Mexico

CRN123

Grew up in Salt Lake, Live in Denver.. miss Crown Burger every day…

CRN123

Grew up in Salt Lake, Live in Denver.. miss Crown Burger every day…

Rdomino

Crown Burger in Denver is awesome.

Rdomino

Crown Burger in Denver is awesome.

Richardnuell

The combo sounds sooooo yum. The salt from the pastrami would leave know need for salt or seasoning salt. I want to know if there is any salt at all on the Pastrami burger before the pastrami? Nice piece Ben

Richardnuell

The combo sounds sooooo yum. The salt from the pastrami would leave know need for salt or seasoning salt. I want to know if there is any salt at all on the Pastrami burger before the pastrami? Nice piece Ben

Chris Dempsey arrived at The Denver Post in Dec. 2003 after seven years at the Boulder Daily Camera, where he primarily covered the University of Colorado football and men's basketball teams. A University of Colorado-Boulder alumnus, Dempsey covers the Nuggets and also chips in on college sports.

Nicki Jhabvala is the Sports Digital News Editor for The Denver Post. Before arriving in Denver, she spent five years at Sports Illustrated working primarily as its online NBA editor, and she was most recently the overnight home page editor at the New York Times.